


Brimful of Love

by cosmic_llin



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Ficlet, Friends to Lovers, Older Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 05:29:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5955445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin/pseuds/cosmic_llin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marilla Cuthbert had never expected to spend so much of her life being happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brimful of Love

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [olderladiesfemslashfest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/olderladiesfemslashfest) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
> Marilla Cuthbert/Rachel Lynde
> 
> A house brimful of love.

Marilla Cuthbert had never expected to spend so much of her life being happy. 

Happiness at all, when it arrived in the form of a red-headed orphan who talked like a book and smiled so her teeth showed, was sufficiently unexpected that it took Marilla a good while to recognise it for what it was.

She’d half imagined that it would leave with Anne when she went away to Redmond. She’d half thought that it was a specific sort of feeling that Anne trailed after her, and that couldn’t be got in any other way. But Rachel and she and the twins made their own sort of happiness - admittedly a much different sort than the one Marilla was used to with Anne about the place, but it started the same lightness in her heart, the same quirk at the corner of her mouth.

She and Rachel had known one another for longer than Marilla could remember and had always rather liked one another in spite of themselves, but knowing someone and living with them were two very different things. Marilla had expected a few teething troubles, and there were some, but in the main they managed very well together, and Rachel had a matter-of-fact way with Davy that helped a great deal - she had raised several boys of her own and knew just how to handle him.

Dora and Davy managed lots of the chores around the house, and Rachel had solemnly promised Anne not to let Marilla do anything that might strain her eyes too much, and so during the day while the twins were at school there was - by Marilla’s standards - remarkably little for the two of them to do. They sometimes spent entire afternoons at a stretch sitting in the sunshine, Rachel relaying all the gossip and news, and Marilla either good-naturedly encouraging her or bickering and scolding, according to her whim.

Of course, they weren’t idle - Marilla was working on a rag rug. But for long minutes she let it sit in her lap while they talked, side by side and leaning together, laughing, and the rug took shape slowly. There was no real rush, she supposed.

In the evenings, when the twins had gone to bed, they sat together and Rachel read Anne’s frequent letters aloud. She had an expressive way of reading that was suited to Anne’s exclamation-laden messages, full of news and stories. They composed replies together, Marilla dictating informative updates on the twins, with Rachel interrupting to add in the gossip that they both knew Anne craved. When there were no letters to read or write, Rachel read aloud from the newspapers and magazines that somehow found their way to Green Gables on a regular basis now, and Marilla provided scathing commentary, watching Rachel’s face for the moment her grin turned into a laugh.

Marilla hadn’t quite the imagination to describe what they were doing as “falling in love”, and even if she had, she mightn’t have. They were just a widow and an elderly spinster, keeping one another company. And besides, it happened so gradually that no one moment caught her by surprise. They sat close together on the garden seat, their sides pressing warmly together, for weeks before Marilla felt Rachel’s soft hand slip into in hers. They kissed one another on the cheek to say goodnight, and the kisses drifted so slowly that the moment that their lips met, it didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary. More than anything it felt, well, girlish - didn’t Anne clasp the hands of her friends gladly, and kiss them hello and goodbye and whenever the emotion of the moment moved her to it? Being with Rachel made Marilla feel young, that was all it was.

Being with Rachel made her happy. It made her think that, perhaps, they might go on being happy for a long while yet.


End file.
